(The Morning Watch is a recurring feature that highlights a handful of noteworthy videos from around the web. They could be video essays, fanmade productions, featurettes, short films, hilarious sketches, or just anything that has to do with our favorite movies and TV shows.)

In this edition, watch a documentary short about Phil Tippett, the animator behind movies like Star Wars and Jurassic Park. Plus, see if Binging with Babish can accurately recreate McDonald’s Szechuan sauce recently made popular again by Rick and Morty. And finally see how a meeting goes for members in a group called Human Centipede Anonymous. Read More »

Star Wars: The Force Awakens is full of eye-popping effects, both practical and CG. And if you were paying attention, you may have noticed a bit of stop-motion animation thrown in there as well. After the jump, watch a video showing the Force Awakens stop-motion sequence came together under the guidance of VFX wizard Phil Tippett. (Minor spoilers for Star Wars: The Force Awakens ahead.) Read More »

In case you missed it stated over the past couple years, or recently embedded in the report of Forest Whitaker joining the cast of Taken 3, Liam Neeson has explained that the plot of this threequel deviates from established pattern: “no one gets taken” this time. More of that quote after the break, along with the following:

February 2014 is here and we still don’t have official news on Star Wars Episode VII. What we do have is Star Wars Bits, lots of tiny pieces of news to tide us over before the big stuff hits. In this edition read about the following:

Zac Efron confirmed he did take a meeting about Star Wars Episode VII.

Billy Dee Williams talks about the Star Wars legacy, and whether he’d come back for a new one.

Check out great images of the Star Wars Rebels Lego sets.

A rumor has begun to swirl that the Star Wars spinoff films will be delayed.

For the last 27 years, residents of the San Francisco Bay Area has been proud of the container cranes at the Port of Oakland because according to local lore, the cranes were the inspiration for the AT-AT Walkers from Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. There is even a popular t-shirt that is sold in the area drawing the comparison.

I’ve always been skeptical of the claim. Two weeks ago while driving across the Bay Bridge on my way to Pixar Animation Studios, I discussed with Alex from FirstShowing a possible story to discover the truth behind the creation of the AT-AT Walkers. The problem is that no one in publicity or available contacts could provide us with a definite answer, and that the only way you could be sure is to ask George Lucas himself, which is, well, almost impossible. And we concluded that we would probably never get the real answer.

Well it turns out that San Francisco Chronicle journalist Peter Hartlaub was finally able to ask Lucas about the story, and guess what? Yup, it’s completely untrue. Just another urban myth:

“That’s a myth,” Lucas said, politely but firmly. “That is definitely a myth.”

And for anyone who might also believe that the trench-like San Pablo/MacArthur exit on I580 might have inspired the surface of the Death Star, Lucas also insisted “that’s a myth, too.”

Phil Tippett, the stop-motion animator who was responsible for the sequence says that the original vehicles actually looked nothing like a container crane, and more like a garbage truck.

“At one point in the design they were going to be big and kind of radio controlled,” he said. “More like big armored vehicles with wheels.”

So there you have it. Another Urban Movie Myth BUSTED. Next week on Urban Movie Myth Busters we will attempt to prove that the Hoverboard from Back to the Future isn’t real.